Jeremy was disappointed to discover Comcast dropped banner ads onto his DVR this week:

I noticed I’d lost about 1/8th of my overall screen space to a new “advertisement slot.” Worse yet, I’ve lost 2 (of 6) lines of the visible grid area, meaning I have to spend roughly 1/3 longer than before just to scroll through channels.

Assuming he’s stuck with them, JT provides several interesting suggestions on how Comast (or is it Motorola?) might improve their ad-serving implementation. Until then, he wonders where that Comcast-Motorola-TiVo is… While he’ll get a better interface (one day), the ads won’t be going away:

make the TiVo(R) service and advertising capability widely available to Comcast customers

combine TiVo’s unmatched DVR features and innovative advertising capabilities with the power of Comcast’s advanced digital television services

TiVo and Comcast will make TiVo’s interactive advertising platform available across Comcast’s customer base

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Looks like Gamefly is phasing in an east coast distribution center next week. Given my prior mail rental experiences with these guys, I’ll probably continue to pass. Davis recently gave them a second chance, though he tells me: “Hard to believe that their service has gotten worse.” Doh!

Starting next week, you may notice that the return address on your GameFly mailer will be Pittsburgh, PA. We’re pleased to open this new shipping location as part of our continued effort to improve mailing times for GameFly members across the entire United States.

Come 9/28, Sega will end repair support for the Saturn and Dreamcast in Japan This isn’t so newsworthy here in the US or here on this blog… However, there’s a special place in my heart for the Sega Dreamcast.

I worked for a small company back during the Internet boom and a few of us pushed for (and were granted) a gameroom in the office. We painted it ourselves, assembled the foosball table, and stuck a few beanbag chairs in front of a TV with a Dreamcast. I spent countless hours kicking butt as Afro Thunder in Ready 2 Rumble and sliding around corners in Crazy Taxi… probably while billing our clients.

I also had a Dreamcast at home and the hardware was ahead of its time — Using the builtin modem, I was able to race my buddies Matt and Paul (hundreds of miles away) in Daytona or fire up a web browser. Heck, I even ran Linux off CD though I never could enable that soft modem (and I didn’t care enough to purchase the broadband adapter).

Too bad Sega couldn’t execute, from a business perspective, in the hardware market as they produced the best platforms of the time. Now all we have to look forward to are crappy Sonic remixes.

The rumors are true… There is a black Xbox and it does offer HDMI (1.2). And unlike Apple TV, Microsoft kindly includes a HDMI cable. In lieu of of the Premium’s 20GB hard drive, the Xbox 360 “Elite” bundles a 120GB drive. While I see no reason (yet) to upgrade my Xbox (though my current drive and fans are too loud), the new package runs for $479 and will be available towards the end of April.

In other Xbox 360 news, Microsoft is adding additional content providers to the Video Marketplace, warranty service is being improved, and Guitar Hero II is out today.

For the last few months, I’ve found myself buying more video games then I normally do. Usually I might buy a game once every three months and then play it intermittenly until I get sick of it and move on. Recently though, I’ve found myself wanting to try out more games and have been spending more time playing my Xbox then normal. This was probably caused in part, by my having to live without my Xbox 360 for a month, while Microsoft repaired my console. Once I got it back, I was ready to play video games with a vengence and have spent way too much money over the past few months, buying new games for my console.

At first I figured the best way to try out a bunch of new games would be to reactivate my Gamefly account, but every time I went to their site, I just couldn’t hit the submit button to actually sign up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to join, but rather that every time I went to the site, I froze up when I was faced with the decision over whether I wanted ten days free or a discounted first month. This sounds really stupid because the difference in price was only a few dollars, but having had a negative experience with Gamefly in the past, I liked the idea of trying to see if they’ve improved and being able to quit without a hassle, in case they haven’t. At the same time, before signing up, I was about 75% certain that I’d be a member for at least the first month, so the part of me that loves a good deal, didn’t want to give up the lower promotional rate. The positives and negatives of this trade off were so evenly balanced in my mind, that for the last three months, I’ve been spending way too much money buying video games when I could have been renting them from Gamefly instead.

I probably would have just kept buying games, but over the weekend I came across a story on Digg, that helped to motivate me to become a member again.

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Netgear Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000)

The EVA8000 was released this week for $399. Jeremy Toeman over at LiveDigitally spent about ten hours with it (and shot 20 minutes of video) before flying out of town. I played with the 1080p Digital Entertainer at CES and thought it looked promising.

Apple TV

Apple TV ($299) is due next week, and Ben Drawbaugh of EngadgetHD is getting ready. I haven’t been very enthused about this device, fearing the worst of Apple’s generally locked down media ecosystem. Though, I’ll wait for the reviews to come in before passing final judgment. One thing’s for sure, I still feel confident in winning my bet with Thomas Hawk that iTunes will offer HD video downloads this year.

Windows Vista Media Extenders

Supposedly they’re coming this year, though no details on who or when. In the meantime, I love my Xbox 360 on so many levels. (Guitar Hero 2, April 3!)

Linksys KiSS 1600

Linksys announced the Kiss 1600 at CeBIT with an April release at £260 — not sure what it’ll sell for in the US, but there’s no way they’ll move any (or sell them) at $500 (Google’s currency conversion). The 1600 seems to offer similar media support as the Netgear EVA8000, though resolution is capped at 720p and a DVD player is kindly incorporated. Linksys/Cisco arranged to buy Kiss in 2005.